Automatic Acting – Pondering the Style and Art

We were staging the curtain call. I did theatre stuff in high school, so I’m pretty used to curtain calls, learning lines (though I’m still rough with that one, sorry Kallen), and general direction do’s and don’t’s.

But something in my mind snapped when the stage manager told me to take my final speech from a line near the end. When she told me the line, however, I didn’t even know that it was my line.

The revelation mainly centered around how I get into a sort of autopilot-esque mode when I’m onstage. I don’t think about anything outside of what I’m doing in the moment or what I have to do in the coming moments. It’s like a long sequence of things to do. Follow the staging, remember that note from last night, you know the line so don’t even worry about messing it up.

I had to wonder: is this automatic acting mode beneficial or detrimental to my performance?

From the directorial, technical, and peer perspectives that surround me, no one has outright told me that I appear to be running scenes by the numbers or doing a particularly bland job (they could just be pretending to be nice to me, but for comprehension sake, I’ll just go along with them).

So that leaves a more intrinsic evaluation to be spearheaded by myself. Theatre is an art, art is a celebration of humanity, so does a pragmatic and cold approach to acting lessen the impact? Granted, I haven’t much more than an amateur resume under my belt, but even then, am I truly doing a service in my contribution to an art? Can I call myself an actor?

I guess I’m not sure. Maybe all of this is just in my head, sparked by me tripping up a line that I had slightly skewed when asked about.